Anyone using Cinema 4D for GS art, animation?

sawkastee

Just wondering if anyone is using Cinema 4D to create art and animation for their GS apps? I started using C4D a bit ago and had a few questions on how folks are best using it with GameSalad.

GOG_Games

Hmmm, I haven't used it before. How does it work for you?

Socks

Me !

sawkastee

@GOG_Games - works well, pretty impressed at the speed at which I am able to create some motion graphics.

@Socks - do you know how to get C4D to export png frames of JUST the object that is animated??? I'm sure it has something to do with the camera or render settings. I just want to trim off all the excess scene around my animated object.

Socks

do you know how to get C4D to export png frames of JUST the object that is animated???

@sawkastee

Sure, just remove the stuff you don't want (simply delete in C4D) so the animated object is by itself - also when you render make sure you output an alpha channel.

Or you can use the compositing tag to define what does and what doesn't get rendered.

sawkastee

@Socks I'm doing a bad job explaining my issue, I understand setting the alpha channel and deleting objects I don't want rendered. What I want C4D to do is render only the scene necessary to accommodate the object and it's animation behavior. See the screenshot. The plane object is 400x400 and it flips like a book cover, the render area is 800x600 so when the png frames get exported I end up with a lot of wasted space around the object. Do you know how to get C4D just to export the object and not any of the area in the red "x"?

Socks

@sawkastee

Ah ! I see what you mean now !

Basically you want your PNG sequence to be cropped as tightly as possible to make it as efficient as possible - you want to find the X and Y extremes of your animation and use these to define your crop area ?

There are two ways to go around this - I usually render stuff out with surrounding space and then crop it in After Effects (or Photoshop or any motion graphics / compositing software) - but you can also frame it all in C4D if you want, you can frame it so that the final image sequence crops closely to your animation - you need to set this up with the output size and the **zoom** of the camera (don't **move** the camera nearer as this will change the F.O.V - you need to optically zoom in on the object).

I do this all the time, make my C4D renders as efficient as possible by cropping them down.

One this to bear in mind (assuming your example sizes are real), a 400 x 400 image will occupy a 512 x 512 chunk of memory, so - for example - getting a 400 x 400 pixel animation down to, say, 360 x 320 pixels through judicious cropping will not save any memory or otherwise make your GameSalad game/app/book more efficient or load faster.

sawkastee

@Socks Thanks for the answer, you're always so helpful. I was hoping there was a magic button, I will try as you mentioned and move the cam as close as possible then edit, trim the PNG's in PhotoShop or AE.

Socks

@Socks Thanks for the answer, you're always so helpful. I was hoping there was a magic button, I will try as you mentioned and move the cam as close as possible then edit, trim the PNG's in PhotoShop or AE.

@sawkastee


If you have access to AfterEffects then I wouldn't even bother adjusting the crop / camera in C4D, just render out the image sequence however you have it set up and then crop it in AfterEffects !

A quick trick for you so you can see the spatial (and temporal) extent of your animation (and so know where to crop) :

Select all your frames and import them as individual images (ie: don't click on 'PNG sequence')

Select all the individual images in AE's project window and drag to new composition . . . when the pop up window appears go for 'single composition' - and don't click 'sequence layers' . . .

Now you should have all the frames of your animation stacked on top of each other in a single composition - from frame 1 to frame 100 (or whatever the length of your animation is) and you can clearly see every pixel your complete animation takes up . . . so you can work out your best crop.

Once you've worked out the composition size / crop, just delete everything and import the sequence again but as an image sequence this time. . . .

Hope all that makes sense.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

I've never used C4D but when I export my PNG sequences out of motion I reduce the canvas size manually to crop the image area then export.

RexCarsalot

The magic button DOES exist.

Although isn't in C4D that I know of, or any 3D graphics program (to the best of my knowledge), but it IS in the GIMP.

Select "AUTOCROP IMAGE" under "IMAGE."

It will crop out everything except your image. It's brilliant. If you have an animation sequence, open the sequence "as layers."

With some experimenting and tweaking, you can get the sizes right to render out GameSalad friendly sizes no problem.

sawkastee

@Socks - I tried that technique and it works well, thanks!

artfish

I use Maya, but why wouldn't you just zoom in tight with your camera and then render at the desired resolution like socks said? just curious.

sawkastee

@artfish

I have been doing that but with an object animation that moves around the scene its hard to determine the full extent, range of the object to zoom to.